Book Review by Rev John Dansie

A non- anxious presence ... How a Changing and Complex World will Create a Remnant of Renewed Christian Leaders by Mark Sayers

I’ll be honest the title grabbed my attention: a non-anxious presence. It is what I hoped the book would be about. I hoped the book would give tools, tips, suggestions or something that would help me to figure out how I could be a non-anxious presence in my role as a Defence chaplain… but I’ll come back to that.

The main thrust of the book is the idea that the world is in a “Gray Zone”: a transitory time from a world that was centralised and characterised by American power dominance to a networked decentralised world with emerging dominant powers.  Sayers argues that people are plagued by anxiety and that where in the past “strongholds”, such as the Church, have been able to hold societal anxiety in check, the breakdown of these institutions and large “stronghold” style organisations has seen an increase in anxiety and anxiety related issues.

The book is very good at naming the current climate and at observing and pointing out how the world is.  What Terry Veiling would call reading the signs of the times.

However, reading this book felt a bit like watching Scooby Doo as a child.  I read the whole book enthralled and making sure I was following the key ideas and main points only to find out that “as the villain was unmasked”, so to speak, the answer is a personal connection to God and a heavenly orientation in how we think and act.

In the end I found the book helpful for highlighting and naming how things are at this moment, and I found the final sections to be another leadership book restating the importance of focusing on the fundamentals of ministry in a different way. All that being said, I would recommend this book to other Christian leaders.